Purdue University security expert Gene Spafford, who testified before Congress about Sony's security problems, said there are plenty of examples. He cited Sony banning users who modded their PlayStations, the infamous case of installing "rootkits" on PCs of users as copy control for CD, and lawsuits it has filed against the likes of George Hotz and Jammie Thomas.

Hotz, a hacker known for unlocking the iPhone, riled up Sony when he started a blog to document his progress hacking the PlayStation 3, which was regarded as being a locked and secure system. Thomas got caught up in a music piracy case, accused by the recording industry of sharing songs on the file-sharing site Kazaa.

"The image that has emerged from all this is that Sony is a rapacious corporation with no heart," Spafford said. "Thus, it is not surprising that they might be a target for hackers."

Fast-forward and you have the malicious attack on the PlayStation Network that compromised millions of user accounts and identities. And once word got out that Sony was not doing as good a job on the security side as it should be, the sharks could smell blood in the water.

Sony became snarled in almost constant attacks on all fronts, from phishing sites running on the servers of its Thai website to the most recent breaches by the merry hacksters known as LulzSec.